Day before yesterday, the NE Fisheries Management Council banned pair- trawlers from fishing for any type Herring in the the Gulf of Maine Closed areas effective May 1st. The ban was done to protect Alwife/River Herring which often mix with Sea Herring inshore and are taken in the trawls. The areas are closed to groundfishing, but the Herring Trawlers had an exemption until now even though the commercial Cod fishermen claimed for years they were taking large hauls of Cod in their trawls and discarding them.

This action compliments the recent Alwife/River Herring run closures and ban on taking, possessing,transporting or selling Alwife/River Herring in Mass or Conn. RI, NH and Maine are expected to close their runs also before the season which begins May 1.

for the herring

WoooHooo thats big news:kewl:

Any body have an idea of when the sea herring show up? I know in my local runs, by May 1'st there are years the run is almost over already. April seems likes its the peak near me. I wish the ban you mentioned took effect a month or 2 earlier.

long overdue, hope it is not too little too late. Once again, poor management has got us to a complete shutdown.

If they want to rebuild herring stocks they will need to do more then just stop fishing for them. (althought this is a first step) How about some federal and State $ for rebuilding historical runs and improving the newer ones? How about relaxing all the overbearing permitting fees that are involved in re-building a run? How about putting some people on the re-building efforts that really know what they are doing and oversee this to compleation? They have been taking from this fishery for decades, it is about time they give something back.

They have been taking from this fishery for decades, it is about time they give something back.
So true.
This fishery has gone from basically no regulation and almost ZERO oversight to being shut down. Hello, NMFS where are you, hello.
This is like when they were screaming the cod stocks collapsed * stop all fishing * when in reality their survey vessel was and had been towing a collapsed net catching nothing. This was discovered by a commercial fisherman.:fishslap:

A little scared about the May 1 date as it might be too late, Now RI and CT fish don't fall into the G.O.M. so I hipe they do something down here too (what is the migration range of the herring anyway??). I know we see the herring coming into the runs in March down here and I think Mass is no more than a few weeks later from Boston and points north...

But it is a start - too late - but a start

Council limits herring vessels

New regulations to take effect in 2007, New England fishing regulators voted to limit the number of fishing vessels that can catch Atlantic herring in a move to stabilize the growing fihery.
Under the new rules that take effect in 2007, vessels that entered the herring fishery after 2003 will no longer be allowed to catch Atlantic herring. Future boats will also be barred from the fishery.
This would eliminate so called "derby fishing" when vessels race against each other to catch as much of the quota as they can before the fishery is closed, As more vessels enter the fishery, the incentive to race for fish will grow. Derby fishing can lead to overfishing and cause negative impacts.

Any body have an idea of when the sea herring show up? I know in my local runs, by May 1'st there are years the run is almost over already. April seems likes its the peak near me. I wish the ban you mentioned took effect a month or 2 earlier.

Sea (Atlantic) Herring do not spawn in coastal streams, but at sea. It is the River Herring and Alewife that spawn in your coastal streams. But, they (alewife) mix with sea herring near shore in spring-summer and that's why pair trawling has been banned inshore during that time.

Sea (Atlantic) Herring do not spawn in coastal streams, but at sea. It is the River Herring and Alewife that spawn in your coastal streams. But, they (alewife) mix with sea herring near shore in spring-summer and that's why pair trawling has been banned inshore during that time.

Bill, I know a little about the alewifes but nothing about sea herring, that's why I asked when they started to show. What I really wanted to know is where they are in relation to the alewifes now and over the next 5 weeks. Do they only mix after the alewifes spawn or do they travel together.

The first of the river herring are showing up now. You've still got 5 full weeks till that ban goes into effect. Where are the sea herring now in relation to the schools of alewifes that our making their journey to spawn. They are both offshore somewhere... I am hoping they are no where near each other, as the bulk of returning alewifes will be coming to spawn in the next 4 weeks, and you still have 5 weeks till that ban goes into effect.

Also as I understand it the alewife only spawn at a certain point in their life cycle. So where are the ones that aren't spawning this year, are they anywhere near those sea herring???

Sandman, there is quite a bit of money available for restoration projects. The Army Corp, NOAA, American Rivers and other government agencies and non profits have good restoration grant programs. It is up to folks at the local level to go out and get them and put them to good use. As fisherman and people concerned with these matters it is up to us to take the bull by the horns and make it work for our concerns.

Diggin,
The times when the River Herring mix with the sea Herring varies. The experts claim the S.Herring come inshore as the water warms and can be there between May and Sept. The R.Herring begin spawning now through July but some don't drop down to the salt until later. The inshore pair trawling ban is as much guess-work as knowledge, IMHO. At least they are trying to take some preventative measures.

But the sea herring boats that access the processing ships, how far offshore are those boats? If they are here through late winter, is there a comingling happening between the river and sea herring fisheries?

I don't know where you see them, John but there are no processing boats from the cape north. Haven't been for years. Those pair-trawlers are operating mostly out of Gloucester, New Bedford and Portland and land their fish in those ports and Boston. Depending on the season, they fish up on Jeffries and down off the Jersey shore.

Council limits herring vessels

New regulations to take effect in 2007, New England fishing regulators voted to limit the number of fishing vessels that can catch Atlantic herring in a move to stabilize the growing fihery.
Under the new rules that take effect in 2007, vessels that entered the herring fishery after 2003 will no longer be allowed to catch Atlantic herring. Future boats will also be barred from the fishery.
This would eliminate so called "derby fishing" when vessels race against each other to catch as much of the quota as they can before the fishery is closed, As more vessels enter the fishery, the incentive to race for fish will grow. Derby fishing can lead to overfishing and cause negative impacts.

Offshore, the time frame on the new rules will take effect in 2007 as was written in the SouthCoast newspaper out of New Bedford. There is a conflict with the time frame that you indicated which was May 2006.
Are we comparing apples with apples and what is the time frame?

The processing boat was processing in RI waters - but not sure if it came in this year (I think the permit was denied). This particular Russian boat did not actually fish for the herring, just purchased from local boats. It was permitted for 5000 tons of Mackeral and 5000 tons of herring...

I have seen / heard some interesting comments on the Observers of the "sea" herring fishery in that these observers may be focusing on juvenile haddock instead of differentiating between alewive, blueback, or sea herring...

Council limits herring vessels
Under the new rules that take effect in 2007, vessels that entered the herring fishery after 2003 will no longer be allowed to catch Atlantic herring. Future boats will also be barred from the fishery.
This would eliminate so called "derby fishing" when vessels race against each other to catch as much of the quota as they can before the fishery is closed, As more vessels enter the fishery, the incentive to race for fish will grow. Derby fishing can lead to overfishing and cause negative impacts.

Still a problem.

While it is true that only boats that participated in the fishery since before 2003 will be allowed to fish the inshore Gulf of Maine, the problem is that this was a huge concession done at the last minute. The original date was 1999, but enough well paid lobbyists made the case that they would sue if their boats (newer entrants) weren't included in the so called Area 1 as well.

Bottom line is that this is going to qualify many many more boats into the fishery than before. So there can still be (and predictably will be) a race to fish. However, this does not mean that there will be over fishing. The herring fishery is managed by hard TACs. Once the harvest Area 1A hits 60,000 metric tons, it is shut off.

The good news is that at least the area is Purse Sein only (no midwater trawling) during the prime months when everyone else relies on there being a good forages base for predotry species (cod, haddock, stripers, etc).

The goal of those interested in seeing the orderly development of the herring fishery has always been (and continues to be) lowering the Area 1A TAC. Still got our work cut out for us.

For more info, see...

http://www.msba.net/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=82

Best,
Mike Flaherty
Wareham, MA

Sorry to read it, but thanks for the update, Mike.

The truth is that inorder to fix a stream that has been damaged the group will have to jump through alot of hoops. This needs to be addressed at the State house because the red tape keeps groups from volunteering to get this work done.

Much of the red tape has been eliminated. When I was in New Hampshire (I left in 2003) we did stream rehabilitation work on a number of coastal streams though the auspicies of NH Div.Marine Fisheries. We also had a state-wide group that has to date removed at least three dams. On one of them the Army Engineers did the actual work. On another, they supplied funding to hire the dam removal contractor.

It can be done,

While red tape could certainly be reduced, there will always be hoops to jump through. Especialy when dealing with dam removals, sediment contamination and other such things. A committed, willing group should be able to get the job done by working within the current system.

We found the key to it in NH was in having several state agencies involved with us - Water Resource Board, Dept.State Planning, Marine Fisheries, and a couple more. Maine has done an awful lot of dam removal and stream rehab and we just followed their example.